An Autistic Theatre Artist Gets Curious About ‘Curious Incident’

With EPIC Players presenting an all-neurodivergent production, an Autistic playwright explores the show’s outsize influence

—

I first saw The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time in 2013 on a spring break trip to London during my junior year of undergrad. I was moved by the production’s empathetic portrayal of its Autistic teenage protagonist, Christopher Boone, coming to terms with his fractured family. Three years later, I saw Simon Stephens’ play, which is based on Mark Haddon’s novel, again on Broadway, this time with my parents. They loved it. However, as we walked out of the theatre, my mom asked me a troubling question: “So, how does this relate to your experience of being Autistic?”

I came up blank.

Even though Christopher and I shared some similar traits—hyper-fixation, an inability to read people, an eccentric but logical sense of direction—he didn’t seem like a full-fledged character. Instead, he was a checklist of tropes writ large on a Broadway stage. Many of my fellow Autistic and neurodivergent folks seemed to agree with me.

Aubrie Therrien, the executive director of the neuro-inclusive theatre company EPIC Players, recalls feeling “icky” when she first saw Curious Incident on Broadway. “People left the show going, ‘The tech was incredible!’ And it was!” she says. But the production “wasn’t as focused on what was actually happening,” with Christopher as an Autistic person.

While the Broadway production never cast an Autistic performer as Christopher, Autistic actors such as Mickey Rowe and Alexander J. Stuart later played the part to great acclaim in regional productions. Over the years, there’s been a well-documented reclamation of the show among Autistic artists. And now EPIC Players is presenting a production with an all-neurodivergent cast at Off Broadway’s A.R.T./New York Theatres from November 20 to December 6. As a playwright working to expand Autistic representation onstage, I was curious about why we keep returning to this show.

In 2023, Sydney Zarlengo, a performer, disability scholar and YouTuber, attempted to produce, direct and star in Curious Incident as their thesis project. They documented their harrowing journey to mount the show in their two-hour documentary Crafting Curious. While they have genuine admiration for the piece, they acknowledge that the work “haunts the Autistic community, for better or worse. Most of us either read the book in school or were told by someone to read it, or have been compared to Christopher on multiple unrelated occasions. I am one of many whose diagnostic journey began with this story. And for theatre people, it is the role we’re told we should play because no one can picture us in anything else, not unlike how every Deaf actress has played Sarah in Children of a Lesser God. So, it sits at the root of Autistic identity for a lot of people, even more so for performers, and that’s something that there’s a desire to interrogate and process.”

Therrien sees EPIC’s production as an opportunity to do just that. “Fifteen years on, we still have a limited view of what an Autistic person is,” she says. While there have been other shows with Autistic characters, How to Dance in Ohio being the most high-profile, “there’s only one real option in the professional theatre canon for an Autistic actor. Why do we have this one 2D portrayal of what it means to be Autistic?”

Therrien, who’s co-directing the play with Meggan Dodd, says that working on the show she has come to realize that it “isn’t about Christopher’s autism. It’s really about this messed-up family dynamic, this giant family secret and the flaws of everyone around him.”

Dominick Mastrodonato, the Autistic actor tackling the Herculean role of Christopher, speaks passionately about his character’s grit and determination. “If he believes that something is just and must be pursued, he’s going to do it,” Mastrodonato says. “It’s not just the sheer will, but the motivation and the passion that enable him to do things that others and he himself might have perceived as impossible.”

While many Autistic artists I spoke with expressed fondness for the play—some admitted they “sobbed” when they first read it—they all agree that one show is not enough. Alexander J. Stuart, who played Christopher at the Actors Theatre of Louisville and Florida Studio Theatre, says, “We must continue evolving past this one autism play and into a larger collective of works that challenge normative, neurotypical expectations of autism, and introduce narratives and characters that are allowed to be as complex and flawed as any others within the popular theatrical canon.”

Mastrodonato agrees: “There are so many people who are not cis white men who have autism.”

While Ryan Nock, a scholar working at the intersections of disability, theatre and performance, acknowledges progress is slow, he believes “other plays will emerge, plays that meaningfully challenge, build from and stim upon the foundation Curious Incident has set. For all its flaws, it continues to spur us to better conversation, to greater heights and to more thorough considerations of what autism is and can be.”

Actually, that’s already happening, see Jordan Bird’s poison tree, Kyle A. Smith’s REVOLUTION, Harmon dot aut’s Minden, Baylee Shlichtman’s The House of Flightless Birds, M. D. Schaffer’s Communication, Hayley St. James’ For Leonora, or, Companions; Jackson Tucker-Meyer’s The Perfection of the Donut; Sydney Kurland’s Somebody in Bumf*ck, Montana Loves Me and Dave Osmundsen’s Light Switch (yes, I am plugging my own play).

Curious Incident was only the inciting incident of the Autistic theatre canon. The rising action is happening.

—

TDF MEMBERS: Log in to browse our latest discounts for theatre, dance and music.